Cleaning Company Ordered to Pay Overtime

Mar 7, 2014

A Peabody cleaning contractor, Ward’s Cleaning Service, Inc. must pay its workers $1 million in back pay and damages. The cleaning company illegally asked employees to use multiple time cards with different names, changed time cards, paid employees with checks made out to false names and paid employees in cash.

Companies, like this cleaning company, trying to avoid paying overtime is all too common in Massachusetts. Many bars and restaurants pay bouncers and waitstaff in cash, rather than paying overtime. Restaurants often have servers punch in under another server’s number or refuse to pay for time spent doing side work or going to meetings. Companies like this cleaning company change time cards or punch workers out early and require them to still work. Restaurants, contractors and other companies use two separate, but related companies to issue two paychecks in order to avoid overtime pay.

Although some workers are exempt from overtime, most are due time and a half after working forty hours in one week. If you have questions about whether you are owed wages, please call us.

Massachusetts has one of the strongest laws in the country to protect employees from wage theft. A company can be required to pay three times the wages owed and the employee’s attorney’s fees if the employee wins the case.

If you have any questions about your right to overtime, call us, we’re friendly! Please call Maura Greene at 617-936-1580. She has recovered overtime pay for servers, dispatchers, and other workers. Maura Greene was named in the Boston Globe in 2014 and 2013 as one of Boston’s top-rated lawyers.